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Topic: NAPOLEON (Read 23678 times)

Watching Romanek's One Hour Photo again recently, and recalling the first time I saw it, it's very kiddie-Kubrickish. The movie's not so good actually, even though I liked it and bought the dvd. It's because of Robin Williams I think. Anyhow, Romanek would do an OK job, but that's it I think.

Ghostboy, did you actually like Ali? It's my least favorite Mann flick. I think Mann's niche is the crime genre, and that's it really. Heat and Collateral are just amazing.

Shit, why not dream about Scorsese making this? That would be incredible. A true great working on the greatest's dream. Let's just keep Ridley Scott and Wolfgang Petersen and Oliver Stone away from this.

Yes, but The Insider and Last Of The Mohicans are his best films. That's what I was basing my judgment on.

Ridley Scott would be rather blah for this. Scorsese could be cool. But I'd rather see someone young (relatively speaking) take a crack at it. Someone with something to prove, not something to live up to.

The problem I have with about every director mentioned above is that they have a style and touch that they inject into their films. Obviously doing this film means not tampering with material many people are very protective of. Its not that I don't mind tampering just for the sake of tampering, but I don't see any of the directors adding quality to the screenplay with their style.

That being said, I actually pick Ang Lee. He's the one most proven to direct a film according to the script and not his own interests.

A couple years ago, Jan Harlan announced that Kubrick's Napoleon script would be published in book form. Where is it????

Quote from: In the Stanley Kubrick Archives thread, cowboykurtis

excerpt from an interview with the book's editor, Allison Castle....and here it is:

AC: Surely "Napoleon" would have been a phenomenal film if Kubrick had been able to find the backing for the project. "A.I" would also have been amazing, if Kubrick had lived long enough to make use of the effects technology we have now. In fact, any film that he might have made would have been a Kubrick film, and thus an exceptional piece of cinema. (You might say I'm biased, but this is how I feel.)

SS: Are you aware of any developments in the release of the Napoleon screenplay?

AC: The screenplay will be published in TASCHEN's upcoming book about Kubrick's "Napoleon" project, due next spring.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

A couple years ago, Jan Harlan announced that Kubrick's Napoleon script would be published in book form. Where is it????

Quote from: In the Stanley Kubrick Archives thread, cowboykurtis

excerpt from an interview with the book's editor, Allison Castle....and here it is:

AC: Surely "Napoleon" would have been a phenomenal film if Kubrick had been able to find the backing for the project. "A.I" would also have been amazing, if Kubrick had lived long enough to make use of the effects technology we have now. In fact, any film that he might have made would have been a Kubrick film, and thus an exceptional piece of cinema. (You might say I'm biased, but this is how I feel.)

SS: Are you aware of any developments in the release of the Napoleon screenplay?

AC: The screenplay will be published in TASCHEN's upcoming book about Kubrick's "Napoleon" project, due next spring.

"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." --Stanley Kubrick

Four months from now another big Stanley Kubrick coffee-table book called Stanley Kubrick: The Napoleon Film will be published by Tachen, running 1900 pages and costing I don't know what....$300? Written by Allison Castle and edited by Christiane Kubrick (i.e., Kubrick's widow), it will focus entirely on the famous Napoleon biopic that Kubrick began working on in '68 and bailed on a couple of years later -- i.e., "the greatest film that Kubrick never made."

In a 1969 interview for his anthology book, The Film Director as Superstar, Joseph Gelmis asked Kubrick to define his passion about making a Napoleon movie.

"That's a question that would really take this entire interview to answer," Kubrick replied. "To begin with, he fascinates me. His life has been described as an epic poem of action. His sex life was worthy of Arthur Schnitzler. He was one of those rare men who move history and mold the destiny of their own times and of generations to come -- in a very concrete sense, our own world is the result of Napoleon, just as the political and geographic map of postwar Europe is the result of World War Two.

"And, of course, there has never been a good or accurate movie about him. Also, I find that all the issues with which it concerns itself are oddly contemporary -- the responsibilities and abuses of power, the dynamics of social revolution, the relationship of the individual to the state, war, militarism, etc., so this will not be just a dusty historic pageant but a film about the basic questions of our own times, as well as Napoleon's.

"But even apart from those aspects of the story, the sheer drama and force of Napoleon's life is a fantastic subject for a film biography. Forgetting everything else and just taking Napoleon's romantic involvement with Josephine, for example, here you have one of the great obsessional passions of all time."

It was said by Mystery Man after quoting the preceding passage that Napoleon's obsessional passion for Josephine is second only to Kubrick's passion for Napoleon."

i hope to god they make a follow up, tho i doubt it. i mean an extensive 500 page follow up on napoleon, for example, to the point that u forget where u live cos all u can think about is kubrick and napoleon.. that would be lovely.

I hope it's not as pricey as the Godfather Family Album ($1800 ), if it's $200 or less I'll be a happy man. fyi, the peso has lost 50% its value against the dollar, it went from $10 pesos to $15 in the last moths, so more than $200 is a lot of $$$.